Thanks to Covid-19 I’ve been in this house too damn long, and it’s cooooold outside anyway.  Read?  Well, of course, but nothing that would tax my brain, make me work, depress me, or worry me tucked up here safely in my cocoon.  No, sir.  It was just gonna be read and snack, read and snack, read and snack some more.  If that’s where you are too, then I’ve got three for you.  Got ‘em right here.   

As I poked about looking for something that met my exacting requirements, I cracked open mystery/thriller The Burning Girls, the latest by British author C.J. Tudor, and sha-zamm.  Sucked right on in.  Grabbed by the neck.  Ass over teakettle.  It was a done deal and finished all too soon.  What to do?  Read another C.J. Tudor.  And then another!  Now I haven’t got my hands on Ms. Tudor’s first novel The Chalk Man yet, but if I had I’m sure I’d have had four for you.  (That one received a couple “Best First” awards, so there you go.)

In order of titles above, a young British cleric is transferred to a remote village with an ancient chapel, a dismissed teacher gets a job in his hometown at the school he attended, and a man’s wife and daughter are murdered…..or not.  All three novels are stand-alones, and all have a supernatural element as well.  For me,  The Other People was the least successful of the three, but maybe I was just sated by then.  Now I know, I know, but Ms. Tudor puts you there, and her characters are wonderfully complex.  Nothing cheesy to speak of except, perhaps, your choice of snacks.  Plus Ms. Tudor may write fastest hooks in the business.  Uncannily so.  Once you start, you won’t turn back.  Fast, fun, and no calories.  Wish I could say the same for the snacks.  Enjoy your reads and your nom-noms.